Kerr on losing Warriors: ‘At some point game has to matter’

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — You want theories? They are almost as numerous as the Warriors' bad passes.

The Dubs are thinking that, as champions, they can win virtually by pulling off their warm-ups. That trip to China has cost them conditioning and timing. Each opposing squad plays its best against the team that everyone says is the best.

And, oh yeah, the season started two weeks earlier than in recent years. True, that doesn’t make them any different from the other teams in the NBA, of course, Nor does the inescapable fact that when they play as imprecisely as they did Sunday night — make it sloppily — they’re going to lose.

Which they did to the Detroit Pistons, 115-107, at home, at the Oracle.

Despite leading by 14 points in the third quarter.

Despite shooting 48 percent from the field.

Despite making more field goals than the Pistons.

Despite grabbing more rebounds.

Despite Klay Thompson getting 29 points, Kevin Durant 28 and Steph Curry 27.

But oh, those turnovers. Twenty-six of them. So unlike the Warriors. Last year’s Warriors. This year, this season, the Warriors are a team trying as much to find their old selves as find the ball on a pass.

A team that having lost two of its four home games, according to head coach Steve Kerr, lacks intensity, lacks focus — and certainly lacks the ability to throw a pass when and where it’s supposed to be thrown.

"At some point,” said Kerr, “the ball has to matter. The game has to matter enough for us to win. We must be leading the league in turnovers.”

Sure, it’s just one game out of 80. Sure, there’s another Monday night in Los Angeles against the Clippers, who Friday night were beaten by the Pistons, their first loss of the season. Sure it’s only October, and no one is supposed to care until May — or at the least, April.

But trends develop. Suddenly the team that was said to be unbeatable becomes very beatable. And maybe there’s an injury to one of the stars. And maybe the other team on the court begins to hit virtually every shot, as the Pistons did in the fourth quarter, when Detroit shot 63 percent.

“This has to do with a complete lack of focus and fundamentals,” said Kerr. The NBA champs, the team that dropped only one of 16 playoff games, unfocused, lacking fundamentals? How can that be?

“We are throwing the ball all over the place,” said Kerr. “Even some passes just hitting guys in the shoes ... I didn’t feel like most of the turnovers were because of their pressure. It just felt like more of them were just us throwing the ball around.”

It was a tough Sunday for the Bay. The Raiders lost. The 49ers lost. Then, at home, stunningly, the Warriors lost. Blowing a big lead.

“We finally started caring with six minutes,” said Kerr, “when we were threatened. We immediately cut it to three. But the right team won. Karma was in the right place tonight.”

Unlike many of the Warriors players trying to receive a pass.

“I think we care,” said Durant. “We’re just trying to squeeze the basketball into places that are not there. We care about the game. It’s the small details.”

That have become big mistakes. “They did a great job of converting our turnovers,” said Durant. “They made shots when they needed them.”

That happens more often than not in the NBA. These guys are the best in the world. Avery Bradley made 8 of 13 for the Pistons, scored 23 points. Reggie Jackson made 8 of 12, scored 22 points.

Detroit out-Warriored the Warriors, hitting on 12 of 27 3-pointers, while the Dubs were 10 of 27.

The fans who usually have that rolling chant, “War-rrr-iors,” instead were begging “Let’s go Warriors.“ First they were pleading and then, too quickly, the game was over and they were leaving.

"We won a championship on this floor,” Durant reminded. “There so much the crowd gives us. They were ready to explode. We didn’t take advantage of it.”

You might say they threw away the chance, just like they did the basketball.

Warriors’ Kerr: ‘We deserved to lose’

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — So the greatest team in NBA history, or least what many forecasters told us it either would be or should be, lays another egg on another opening night. Well, one down and 79 to go.

Yes, after ceremonies, speeches and the dispensing of the little ornaments that athletes say drive them more than money — championship rings — Tuesday evening became a bummer for the Golden State Warriors.

Ahead by 17 points late in the second quarter, giving the all-too-confident fans exactly what they wanted, the Dubs lost Draymond Green, their lead and the game, 122-121, to the all-too-eager Houston Rockets.

Not that the Dubs, despite every publication from Boston to Beijing predicting they were a lock for a second straight title and third in four years, were going to go undefeated. But they did want to start things off a little better than this.

That the game came down to a last-second shot by Kevin Durant, which he made but the red light glowing under the backboard properly negated, was not the issue.

You’re up by 17 before the first half ends, you’re supposed to win.

Especially after the stories that the Warriors were far and away the best team in the NBA and that everyone else was merely play for exercise, particularly in the Western Conference. “The Warriors and 14 other guys,” was the headline in the New York Times.

One of those “guys” is the Rockets, with that nemesis James Harden. He scored 27, and with Green, the league’s defensive MVP, out of the game because of a leg injury incurred in the first half, Harden was throwing up those jumpers when he wasn’t throwing down those dunks.

The big problem, according to Warriors coach Steve Kerr, was their lack of proper condition, a byproduct of their eight-day trip to and from China where, adored by the fans over there, the Dubs helped promote basketball internationally but not their own well being.

“It didn’t surprise me,” he said of his team’s inability to stay in front of the Rockets. The Warriors, who had only a few days of what would have been the normal training camp, were gassed.

“Our lack of conditioning was apparent,” said Kerr. ”We deserved to lose. They outplayed us. We had control of the game most of the way, (but) it never felt like were executing or defending at a high level. I just thought we looked tired.

“I don’t think we are in good enough shape yet to play a 48-minute game against a great team.”

Not with Green bruising his knee. Not with Houston getting 43 rebounds to 41 for the Warriors.

Kerr said Green, who played around 12 minutes in the second half, tweaked his left knee. “He was our best player tonight. He brought most of the energy. He had an incredible dive for the loose ball in front of our bench. He had so many great hustle plays. When you are lacking conditioning, like we are right now, you have to have your high-energy guys out there.

“As soon as he went out, things went south for us. We just couldn’t get any traction.”

What they did get was a huge first half, 8 of 9 and 20 points from the guy they signed this summer as a free agent, Nick Young, who calls himself “Swaggy P.” He finished with 23, one more than Steph Curry, three more than Durant.

“Nick was great,” affirmed Kerr.

The Warriors still may be great, but after winning a title and then receiving so many endorsements for this season, the danger is complacency. Sometimes, teams believe they are as good as people tell them they are.

And everyone’s been telling the Warriors they are not just good but fantastic.

"We will keep our edge,” promised Kerr before the game. ”We have a lot of depth. On nights that we don’t have the motivation or the energy, we have a lot of guys to go to who should be able to help us in that capacity,”

They couldn’t on Tuesday night. There were ceremonies, but in the end there was no jubilation.

Kareem: ‘America has to start talking’

By Art Spander

LOS ANGELES — He was called The Big Fellow. A description both accurate and incomplete. We learned there was so much more to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar than just his physical presence, as imposing as it was.

Beyond the 7-foot-2 basketball player was the student. And the author. And perhaps most important of all in a time of sporting strife, sideline anthem sit-downs, spectator disenchantment, the thinker.   

Abdul-Jabbar was honored the other night, presented the Roy Firestone Award by Westcoast Sports Associates, a group of young professionals who with proceeds from their annual dinner — this was the 22nd — fund athletic activities for underprivileged kids.

Firestone, the longtime TV sports interviewer, was the original recipient, in 1996, and is now the event’s host.

The idea is to recognize a sports figure who has been involved in charitable work. The list includes Jim Brown, Arnold Palmer, Joe Montana, Hank Aaron and Steve Young. That Abdul-Jabbar, so private for so long, was willing to accept surprised some.

Maybe at 70 he has mellowed a bit. Maybe he realizes with his reputation beyond the basketball court, winner a year ago of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, there come obligations, a sky hook version of noblesse oblige.  

The way it works with the award is that a well-prepared Firestone and the honoree sit facing each other center stage, Firestone probing, the subject responding.

“We promised not to get into politics,” said Firestone as the program concluded, “but beside the obvious, what can we do as a people to come together — not just taking a knee like Colin Kaepernick — come together again as a country?”

Abdul-Jabbar never hesitated. “People say what this is all about,” he said. “It’s all about talking to your fellow Americans, no matter what they look like, or their ethnic background or religious background, their socioeconomic background. Talk, and we can discuss the problems we have to solve. But until we start talking to each other, nothing’s going to happen.

“This is the greatest country in the world. We can solve any problems.”

The all-time NBA scoring champion, a six-time MVP, a man who was among the leaders of the black boycott of the American team in the 1968 Olympics, sounding very much like a politician — and drawing an ovation from an audience ready to head home.

The years pass quickly. In the mind’s eye it is 1971, and Kareem still was being called Lew Alcindor, although “Jabbar” (no Abdul) was on the back of his jersey with Milwaukee.

That was some Bucks team, ’70-’71, Oscar Robertson, Bob Dandridge, Lucius Allen and of course Kareem, who was in his second season. It would play — and beat, four games to one — the San Francisco Warriors in the second round of playoffs on the way to the championship.

Because a flower show was being held at Milwaukee Arena, the Bucks' home games that playoff were at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I was the Warriors beat man for the San Francisco Chronicle then, and on an off-day I interviewed Kareem, who was grudgingly cooperative.

“He’s naturally shy,” Firestone told me some 45 years later. Having seen photos of Kareem, who then was Lew, in elementary school, a head taller than any of his classmates, I understood. He hoped to blend in — to do the impossible and be like everyone else.

Now he is proud to stand tall, literally and metaphorically. The insults — his coach at Power Memorial High in New York called him the “N” word to motivate him — and the slights no longer matter. As his college coach, John Wooden, told him, forgive.

“At a certain point, Coach Wooden got through to me,” said Abdul-Jabbar, whose latest book of the six he has written, Coach Wooden and Me, released in June, deals with the relationship between an old coach and a younger athlete.

They ended up having more in common than either would have imagined. Maybe that also is true for all of society.

S.F. Examiner: Sweet redemption: Warriors become first Bay Area team to win title at home since 1974

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — Now inevitability was about to become reality. Fewer  than four minutes remained, and the crowd, at first hesitant, then triumphant, as the Warriors would in a short, glorious time Monday night, let loose, turning the building once more from the Oracle into the “Roaracle,” a place where winners reside.

“Warr-rriors, Warr-rriors, Warr-rriors,” they chanted loudly enough to be heard from Salinas to Sonoma — a gleeful, repetitive salute to the NBA’s once and newest champions, the team that was just short of playoff perfection but long on brilliance and success.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: Return of Kerr, Klay’s shooting are welcome sights for Warriors

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — One of them hadn’t been seen. The other hadn’t been appreciated — except by those who understand what makes a basketball team a winner, a category that includes the guy who hadn’t been seen, Steve Kerr.

Yes, Kerr, with his one-liners and perception, was on the bench Sunday night coaching the Golden State Warriors in person. So, welcome back, coach. And in a way, the other Special K, Klay Thompson also was back, with his 2- and 3-pointers. Of course, hoops cognoscenti who look beyond points totals — Mr. Kerr, for one — know Klay never left.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: Durant dominates as Warriors take 1-0 lead in Finals

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — This was scripted out last summer, the Warriors adding a piece — which was not necessarily missing but unique — special enough to help return the championship they let slip away.

Kevin Durant was looking for the title he lacked, and the Dubs gleefully — if not inexpensively — brought him on board as a free agent, the man who would make a difference.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: Forget the naysayers, the Warriors and Cavs deserve this

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — It’s all yours, America: Warriors-Cavaliers III, The Trilogy, the inevitability. You don’t like it? Tough beans. Too late.

You should have kept Kawhi Leonard healthy (although that wouldn’t have made a difference), Kept Isaiah Thomas healthy (although that wouldn’t have made a difference, either).Or kept Kevin Durant in Oklahoma and LeBron James out of Cleveland.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

Warriors in a rout — but remember the Memorial Day Massacre

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — It was known as the Memorial Day Massacre. The Boston Celtics, at home, crushed the Los Angeles Lakers, 148-114, on Memorial Day 1985 in the opening game of the NBA finals.

What a rout. What a flop by the Lakers, who once more seemed destined to fail.

But it was only one game. And in basketball, as they say, the next one begins 0-0. And the Lakers won that game, and the third game, and defying tradition won the title in six games, the ultimate victory coming at the “massacre” site, Boston Garden.

Thirty-two years ago, of course, but as current as today, a reminder that nothing is certain, not even if you beat the Lakers by 34 points. Or if you whip the San Antonio Spurs by 36 points, 136-100, as the Warriors did on Tuesday night at Oracle Arena in Game 2 of the NBA Western Conference finals.

Sure, the Warriors, up two games to none, are in control. Or it would seem that way. The Spurs, after squandering a 25-point lead Sunday and being edged, were helpless Tuesday night. They were behind 33-16 after a quarter, and it got worse. A mismatch. Yet it was just one game.

Now the series moves to San Antonio for Game 3 on Saturday, and maybe Kawhi Leonard returns for the Spurs. And maybe the intensity and spirit return as well. At home and obviously in desperation, the Spurs will be a factor instead of a disaster.

“It’s a good team,” acting Warriors coach Mike Brown said of San Antonio. “I think they went on the road and beat Houston in a Game 6 (of the conference semis) where they didn’t have Kawhi.”

After that tentative warning, Brown pointed out that for the Warriors, with seven men scoring in double figures, with a defense that kept the Spurs to 37 percent, with a relentlessness evident from start to finish, “This was a good game.””

Not because the Dubs pushed the lead to 41 points near the end. Not because they made 18 of 37 three-pointers (yes, Steph Curry was the main man with 8 of 13 and 29 points, but Kevin Durant had 6 of 10 and 16 points). Rather, because of how they played, as compared to what they did.

“It doesn’t matter how many points you win by,” said Brown, who before the game was able to confer on site with the recovering Steve Kerr, for whom he is subbing.

“Sometimes it doesn’t matter if you lose because sometimes things can just fall the other team’s way, but you do things the right way. So more than anything, yes, we want to win. But it’s how you play, too ... The score doesn’t really matter. It’s how we got to the score. It’s how we played defensively to the Spurs.“

They were missing Leonard, who re-injured his ankle stepping on the foot of the Warriors' Zaza Pachulia on Sunday. San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said it was a dirty play by Pachulia. Maybe fate was listening. Pachulia left Tuesday’s game after roughly seven minutes because of a heel bruise.

Still more than Kawhi, Popovich suggested, the Spurs were missing their fire.

“Tonight was not what I expected,” he said. “I’m disappointed. The only way I can process this is, I think, it’s not about X’s and O’s or rebounds or turnovers or anything like that. I think maybe we felt (Leonard’s absence) too much, Kawhi being gone, in the sense that, as I watched, I don’t think they believed. 

“And you have to believe. I don’t think as a group they really did, which means probably feeling sorry for themselves psychologically, subconsciously, whatever psycho-babble word you want to use ... I don’t think they started the game with a belief ... When you’re playing a team that’s as good as Golden State, you’re going to get embarrassed if that’s the way you come out. And we did. We didn’t come to play.”

The Warriors came, and they played, and they looked like the best team in the league, never mind the best team on the floor. It was the Warriors, flowing, racing, dominating, winning by 36 points.

But it was just one game.

S.F. Examiner: Is it Dirty Zaza or Unlucky Kawhi? Depends on who you support

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — The issue deals with laundry, more specifically uniforms, such as which ones are the bad guys wearing. Well, “bad guys” is over the top, or in this case, under the shoes. Let’s go with “opposition.”

By the Bay, that’s the Spurs. Deep in the heart of San Antonio it would be the Warriors and Zaza Pachulia.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

Warriors play like champs that they are — and now comes hostility

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — This is the way a champion plays, aggressively, intensely, knowing it’s the better team but acting like it’s the underdog — a silly description of the Warriors — sweeping the court, crashing the boards and never giving the opponent a chance.

Sure, the NBA Western Conference semis shift up to Salt Lake City, and the Jazz will be home. But what does that matter? They’re down 2-0 to the Warriors. They haven’t been ahead in either game. Not for a second.

In the opener on Tuesday, the Warriors were up 9-0 before we blinked or the Jazz recovered. And in Game 2 on Thursday, again at Oracle Arena, the Warriors were up 12-3. Punched quickly if not unsuspectingly, Utah had its bursts, but so did the Warriors, who won 115-104.

Six in a row so far for the Dubs, a sweep of Portland and now two against the Jazz. Pressure. On defense, although Utah shot 45 percent. On offense, Draymond Green showing he can score as well as block and rebound, getting 23 points, along with Kevin Durant’s 25 and Steph Curry’s 23.

“Whether it’s Salt Lake or here,” affirmed Quin Snyder, the frustrated Jazz coach, “we’ve got to be better at the start of games. If you’re not, they’re going to capitalize the other way."

Meaning building a lead that so far has proved insurmountable.

Meaning that any moment they get the opportunity, the Warriors will race to the rim or hit a three-pointer.

The Jazz hold the ball, move it, as much to try to keep the other team from making baskets as to make its own. The Warriors are demons, sprinting, soaring. A contrast in styles. Thus far, the Warriors' method has been the one that works.

Everybody knows that Green, the guy from Michigan State, the guy who crashes into people like a fullback and floats above them like a ballerina, is the heart of the Warriors. In the absence of ailing head coach Steve Kerr and in the presence of acting coach Mike Brown, Green is the leader, the fire, sometimes the fighter — as the technical fouls will attest.

When Green went down in the fourth quarter, hobbling off with what seemed like a knee injury — oh, my goodness — who knew what might happen? But he returned to the bench and the game. Phew.

“Yeah,” said Brown, “any time any of our guys goes down it’s a concern. A guy like Draymond does so much for us at both ends of the floor, and he seldom goes down. So when he did, you think that initially it had to be serious. But I went over and asked him if he was OK, and he said yes.”

So the Warriors were OK.

“He was big,” said Brown of Draymond, who had four steals, a blocked shot, and seven rebounds — and was 5-of-8 on three-pointers. “Draymond is at the top of the floor quite a bit. Their game plan is to have whoever’s guarding Draymond to sit in the lane. So he’s getting wide-open threes. And hopefully he’ll keep shooting the ball the way he’s been shooting it throughout the playoffs.”

Curry was 5-of-8 on his three-point attempts, and while Durant was 0-for-4 he did make 13 of 15 free throws, the one Warrior who goes inside for rebounds (11) and points.

Green said his knee locked up after a collision. “I’d had it before,” he said. “It wasn’t like a huge sigh of relief because I kind of knew what it was from the jump.” He also said the Warriors “kind of lost our focus” at times, if not their drive.

Asked what he expected from the crowd at Salt Lake City, Green gave the proper response. The man has been around.

“I expect it to be hostile,” said Green, who can be pretty hostile himself at times — most times. ”It always is. They cheer pretty loud for their team, obviously. With a few things that went on this past week, it will probably be a bit hostile. But that’s fine.”

As, two games in, are the Warriors.

S.F. Examiner: Defense wins championships — and the Warriors look like champions

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — Steve Kerr wasn’t in the building. His back pain, the headaches, the nausea, wouldn’t allow him to be at Oracle. But his game plan was here Tuesday night, the relentless defense he and his staff continually preach and the gold-shirted crowd screams for the Warriors to play.

“Defense. Defense.” It’s what the fans chant. Defense, defense: It was what the Warriors played. The Dubs got the ball in the basket often enough, but when the other team, in this case the Utah Jazz, has a final total in double figures, the Warriors winning the opener of the Western Conference semis, 106-94, the reason was defense.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: JaVale’s journey brings him to Golden State, benefitting both parties

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — The pregame questions carried a sense of worry and a hint of panic. Kevin Durant wasn’t going to play, and my goodness, what were the Warriors going to do without him? Play basketball, of course, as brilliantly as demanded.

You thought otherwise?

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner 

The road and the dream end for the Zags

By Art Spander

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The road ended here. So did the dream. So wonderful a story, the outsider, the small school with the big plan, to stand college basketball on its ear, to beat the big boys with some big men and tenacious defense.

Gonzaga, the “Zags,” as it said in white letters on their blue tops, was ahead, leading North Carolina by a point Saturday night in the NCAA basketball championship of 2017, 1 minute and 40 seconds from the win.

And then never scored again. And then thrashed and missed and fouled and fell. And just like that it seemed, so quickly, a royal coach turning into a pumpkin, a magnificent season turning into a disappointment: Carolina was a 71-65 winner.

There were the Zags, leaning on each others’ shoulders, fighting back tears, knowing the season was finished, the goal unreached. They had lost for only the second time, finished the season 37-2. But it was the wrong game to lose, the game that would have given the school the sporting respect it seeks.

For Carolina, with so much history and six national championships, there was redemption. A year ago, the Tar Heels were beaten in the NCAA final with a second to play by Villanova. This time, it was Carolina’s turn.

“One of the things we talked about,” said Roy Williams, the Carolina coach, “was whether this group was tough enough. I think they were tough enough tonight.”

Tough enough and relentless enough. Defense wins, we’re told, and defense means persistence, tenacity and resilience. Carolina shot 30 percent in the first half, 35 percent for the game. But it battered and badgered Gonzaga after intermission. The Zags shot just 27 percent in the second half.

You can’t lose if the other team doesn’t score. In the last 1:40 of the most important game in the Zags’ history, they didn’t score.

They had a turnover, missed a jumper and had a shot blocked. The one-point lead became a one-point deficit, then a three-point deficit. Then five. It was over.

Przemek Karnowski, the senior, the 7-footer from Poland, usually so capable under the basket with his twists and turns and hook shots, was a sad 1-for-8. If Carolina didn’t know how to get the ball in the basket, it did know how to keep the Zags from getting it in.

“We got good shots,” insisted Mark Few, the Zags' coach. “We had the ball where we wanted.”

Except going through the net.

“(Nigel Williams-Goss) is such a warrior. He blew his ankle and he still was able to get a shot. The kid’s just a flat-out winner, but we never would have gotten to this point without him. He’s about the only guy we could call on who’s really deliberate down the stretch there. We needed a defensive rebound after they missed on a shot that ended up bging a jump ball. That was a back-breaker.”

Gonzaga never had been this far before, never had made it to college basketball’s ultimate week, to the Final Four. So many doubts. So many questions. Still, the Zags couldn’t climb the full way.

“I think we’ll settle in here,” said Few about the Gonzaga program. "I’m hoping it will settle in and we’ll feel better tomorrow and in the days to come.

“It doesn’t feel that great right now for a couple of reasons. You’re on the brink of a national championship. You want to give that to your time. But at the same time, the thing that crushes you is you won’t get to coach these guys again.”

There will be other guys and other teams. Gonzaga can only wish for another result.

One game for Zags: So near, so far

By Art Spander

GLENDALE, Ariz. — One game now. So near. So far. A place Mark Few never had been. A place Gonzaga never had been. All the hopes, the disappointments, the slights, the dreams, distilled to one game.

The Zags have left base camp. Finally. The summit looms. That they’ve made it this far is more than many believed possible. The Zags, the little school that couldn’t but this magnificent season of 2016-17 certainly proved it can.

They’re 37-1, the best record in college basketball. They beat physical South Carolina, losing a big lead but not their poise, winning 77-73 Saturday night at University of Phoenix Stadium. The school that never could get to the Final Four is now in the final one.

The win had Zags coach Mark Few, a minister’s son, doing handstands in the locker room. The win had Gonzaga, named for a 16th-century Jesuit priest who died caring for epidemic victims, moving into the big time and out of that silly designation, mid-major.

“They’re always on me to show emotion after a win,” said Few of his acrobatics. “So that’s my fairly weak effort of showing emotion. I got out of it with a healthy rotator cuff and healthy Achilles, so I think I’m in a good place.”

Gonzaga, in Spokane, Wash., alma mater of Bing Crosby, with its roster of recruits and transfers, with its stress on defense, with its critics who insist the Zags — well, the official nickname is Bulldogs — play a weak schedule, is at worst going to be the No. 2 team in the country and very well could end up as No. 1.

Gonzaga gave up a 14-point second-half lead in four minutes — or, more correctly, South Carolina overcame that lead with defense and shooting. And then the Zags suddenly were down by two, 67-65, with 7:06 to play. Then all the coaching and hustle and skill came forward, and Gonzaga regained control. Zach Collins, a 7-foot freshman, made the most unlikely of baskets for a 7-footer, a three-pointer. Winners find a way.

“Our late-game execution,” said Few. “That’s been a topic of speculation because we haven’t really had many close games. But we practiced it a lot. And I mean the guys executed it perfectly down the last four minutes. So I'm really proud of them for that. And just ecstatic — to be still playing the last game of the year is just crazy cool.”

Few is 54, and you don’t picture or hear him saying “crazy cool,” but he does. He’s been at Gonzaga 18 years. He’s been chased by larger schools — UCLA was interested at one time — but seems satisfied and rooted.

Basketball certainly isn’t football, a sport that Gonzaga, like most smaller schools in America, have dropped. Get yourself two or three excellent players, one of them specifically a point guard, and several other competent ones willing to play roles and listen to instructions, and you can win a title, no matter the total enrollment.

Nigel Williams-Goss spent two years on the other side of the Cascades, at the U. of Washington in Seattle. He left, then heard Few’s call. The man can shoot. He had 23 points Saturday night, high for the game. He also can orate.

“The journey we’ve been on has been unreal,” said Williams-Goss. “We just never stopped believing, and we’ve had the utmost confidence in ourselves the entire season.

“I guess they were saying we were the most nervous team in the tournament. And you know we heard everything all year, haven’t played tight games, were not tough enough ... No one’s here by accident. You have 37 wins in a college season, that’s unbelievable. We’re here to win it.”

Williams-Goss and Collins are roommates. “He told me,” Williams-Goss said of Collins, the freshman from Las Vegas, “he wouldn’t want to be playing against (himself) today. And coach says all year we just can’t talk the talk, we gotta walk the walk.”

Hard to say about walking, but Collins made that go-ahead three-pointer, had six blocks and ended up with 14 points and 13 rebounds.

“He loves being part of the team,” Few said of Collins. “We trust him at the end of the game.”

S.F. Examiner: Andre Iguodala settling into familiar role for Warriors: Being important and impactful however he can

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

He’s the man who goes unnoticed until you can’t stop watching him, the guy who gets his teammates’ — and his coach’s — praise, but rarely gets the headlines.

Andre Iguodala’s problem is not that he isn’t a key component of the Warriors but that he’s not Stephen Curry or Klay Thompson. Or Draymond Green or Kevin Durant.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

Newsday (N.Y.): March Madness: Gonzaga heads to its first Final Four with victory over Xavier

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SAN JOSE, Calif. — All the years. And for Gonzaga the tears. “Tears of joy,” from Mark Few after at last making it to basketball’s promised land, the Final Four.

Gonzaga, named for a saint, Aloysius Gonzaga, nicknamed the Bulldogs but known as the “Zags,” had qualified for the NCAA basketball tournament 19 previous times and never got past the regionals. Until Saturday.

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Copyright © 2017 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): March Madness: Gonzaga survives West Virginia’s press, advances to Elite Eight

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Jordan Mathews, a graduate transfer from Cal who went to summer school with the hope of playing in the NCAA championship game, kept that dream alive Thursday night for himself and Gonzaga.

With the top-seeded Zags trailing fourth-seeded West Virginia, Mathews connected on a wide-open three-pointer from the left wing with 57 seconds left to give Gonzaga the lead for good in a 61-58 win.

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Copyright © 2017 Newsday. All rights reserved.

S.F. Examiner: In uncertain times, Steve Kerr finds pride in NBA’s inclusiveness

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

The question was terribly appropriate for Steve Kerr, a man of the world as much as the basketball court.

On this Saturday evening of contradictions — the Warriors honoring one group of immigrants to America, the Chinese, wearing jerseys with Mandarin letters, while the nation had been ordered to ban other groups of immigrants — Kerr was asked if he had any thoughts on President Trump’s decisions.

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©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

Draymond: “We wanted to beat them”

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — Sure, it’s January and not June, as if that matters. And to Draymond Green and the other Warriors, it doesn’t. Will this one, this unmitigated stomping of the defending champion, the team that stole the crown, if you will, have an effect on the NBA finals six months down the long and winding road? Well ...

The basic rhetoric is that it won’t. Then again, it might. Look, the Dubs grabbed this one by the throat, did everything — and I mean everything, played defense, played offense, rebound aggressively — about as well as imaginable Monday night and overwhelmed the Cavs, 126-91, at the Oracle.

And after four straight losses to Cleveland, the last on Christmas Day as the Warriors fell apart in the final quarter, the other three in the playoffs, any win counted — wherever or whenever.

“I don’t think it’s about losing the last four,” said Draymond Green. “They want to beat us, and we want to beat them. That’s enough.”

And Monday, Martin Luther King Day, it was plenty. If that wasn’t the best game of the year, all things considered, including the opponent, it was a reasonable facsimile.

It was one that had fans begging for more — hey, the Dubs were up 39 and people were booing the officials’ calls — and had Warriors coach Steve Kerr using words like “phenomenal” to describe the performance. It even had the players allowing that they were satisfied, it not elated.

As for the Cavs coach, Tyronn Lue? He was defensive because of the way the Warriors played defense and Cleveland did not (the Dubs shot 50 percent, the Cavs 35 — “They missed 57 shots,” said a gleeful Kerr).

“What do you want us to do?” Lue asked rhetorically. “I mean they beat us. We lost one game ... I didn’t expect it like this.”

Now that Kevin Durant is a member of the Warriors, maybe he and we should expect it like that. The Big Three, Green, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, is now the Big Four. And center Zaza Pachulia, who had 13 rebounds (as did Draymond) is not to be dismissed.

“When you try to take Klay and Steph out of the game,” said Lue, ”you’ve got someone who can go get a basket for himself, and at a high level, too.”

He also can keep someone, such as LeBron James, from getting a basket, Durant blocking James at the rim, a move that sent shockwaves through the Cavs and generated an explosion of noise from the crowd.

Green also had his hand in this one, because on a LeBron fast break he put his hand, and arm, on James. Boom. James went down, the fans went crazy, and there was a question whether Green might be whistled for a flagrant foul as had happened in the finals, when he had kicked one of the Cavs.

Play stopped while the refs viewed videos, and Green was given a technical, but that was about it. Other than message, if indeed there was one.

“I fouled to stop the break,” said Green “and he went down. Yeah, I think it’s a rivalry.”

What James, who was 6-of-18 for 20 points, thought was that the Warriors are “a dangerous team.” 

He didn’t mean physically dangerous, although for a moment there that appeared to be the situation. ”They’ve got so many different options,” said James.

The options Monday resulted in Klay scoring 26, Durant 21 and Curry 20. Along with his 13 boards, Green had 11 assists, as did Curry. This is the way coaches draw things up.

“I thought Steph was great,” said Kerr, “a phenomenal first half (when he had 14 points and 10 assists). His energy was great and he set the tone. He put a lot of pressure on the defense. Defensively, to put that kind of pressure on and to rebound as well as we did, we were finishing possessions.

“We wanted to win. We weren’t happy with our Cleveland game on Christmas Day. Any time you’re facing a team you know is one of the best in the league, you’re going to be up for it. We definitely were up for it.”

That‘s important any month of the year.

And now one that’s big for the Dubs, Cleveland

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — It’s the Cavaliers next. Thank heavens. Cleveland here at Oracle Arena. A game like the one on Christmas Day that means something and at the same time means very little. 

On Monday, Martin Luther King’s birthday celebration, the two best teams in basketball, the Dubs and Cavs, the last two champions, might give us what we get so infrequently when the Warriors are on the court, a game of importance.

That’s not to say Thursday night’s 127-107 home-court win over the Detroit Pistons should be diminished. Hey, the idea is you go out to win every time, isn’t it? And with the league’s best record, 34-6, the Warriors have more than met that standard.

But until the playoffs, which don’t start for another three months — can anybody wait? — for a quality team such as the Dubs, and the Cavs, most nights are repetitive. A slow start, a rally, and with rare exception (you will admit that when you’ve dropped only six games out of 40 that losing is an exception) a victory by a considerable margin.

You check the box score — Kevin Durant had 25 points, Steph Curry 24 and Klay Thompson, healthy again, 23 — and that’s it. Oh yeah, the Warriors also had 39 assists, the 27th time they’ve had at least 30; no other team has done it more than eight. Otherwise, you think ahead. Even if you’re Warriors coach Steve Kerr.

“It’s a great rivalry game,” said Kerr of Cavs-Dubs. “Everybody who follows the NBA looks forward to it. It’s much anticipated, good for us, good for the league and good for basketball.”

For that observation, we’ll say good for Steve Kerr. He worked in TV for a long while. He knows sport is just another form of show business, that every game is not like every other and, as we’ve so delightfully found out with the Warriors, every team is not like every other.

The Warriors and Cavaliers are box office. Once fans came to Warriors games to see the opponents, Magic Johnson or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the Lakers, Michael Jordan and the Bulls, the Celtics of Bill Russell and then Larry Bird. But now the draw is the Warriors. An intrasquad scrimmage would fill the seats. A game against the squad that stole the title is can’t-miss stuff.

A guy who did miss Thursday night was Draymond Green, 0-for-4 on his field goal attempts, as if to prove again there is more to the sport than scoring. Green played his usual outstanding defense and recorded 13 assists and nine rebounds.

“He’s got a little Dennis Rodman,” said Kerr, who played with Rodman on the Bulls. “He makes a huge impact, especially with guys on our team. Maybe not as crazy as Dennis, but the competitive desire is similar. He wanted to get under people’s skin. Draymond wants to dominate a game — one of those guys who just wants to win.

“He’s a unique player. He’s about 6-5 and guarding 7-footers. His passing ability is so important for us, but it’s his defensive versatility that makes us go.”

Green said he’s not as interested in winning against the Cavaliers as in the Warriors playing well. “We want to get better,” said Draymond. “If we get better we’ll win. But nobody’s going to hit the panic button whoever wins or loses Monday.”

For Kerr, it’s a quest for victory and improvement.

“I’d like to see both,” said the coach. “We always try to focus on the process and keep getting better. That’s what it’s all about, continuing on with the work in progress. We made a good step (Thursday night), and hopefully against Cleveland we’ll play well.”

They’ll play well. So will Cleveland. That’s what we want and what we need.